Men You Didn't Raise
by CrimsonTears57
Summary: Short story about L based on the song 'The Day I Left The Womb' by Escape the Fate.


**AN – I was listening to 'The Day I Left The Womb' by Escape the Fate and then I decided to write a story about L based on the song. L may be a little OOC and I know the timeline is off, but this is a fan-FICTION so just get over it. Now this is the way I interpreted the song so it may be different to your view of the song. If you haven't listened to the song you should go listen to it. It's a little sad but I think it's a really good song. I hope you all enjoy the story!**

**DISCLAIMER - I do not own Death Note, the characters used in this story or the song 'The Day I Left The Womb' by Escape the Fate**

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***~* Men You Didn't Raise *~***

_Mother, where are you today?  
You took a piece of me the day you went away  
No recollection nor the smell of your perfume  
Well I took a piece of you the day I left the womb_

Waking up that morning was like walking straight through the gates to hell. I walked out of my room ready for chocolate sauce drizzled on top of fluffy pancakes with a nice cup of cold chocolate milk that would wake me up from my deep slumber. But what I found was something completely different than what I was hoping for.

"I can't stand it!" Mother shouted at Father. "I went out for some drinks, okay? That doesn't mean I slept with another man!"

Five days before then Mother had called to tell us that she'd be going out for some drinks with a couple of friends from work. But after that call we hadn't heard from her for five days. Yesterday morning she had come home, stumbling in through the front door drunk as ever. Father had helped her to bed and then I had to leave for school. When I came home they were both in their room, so I had prepared both my brother and I for bed. I thought everything was okay. I guess I was wrong.

Father scoffed. "For _five _days! You went out for drinks for _five f*cking_ days!"

"Fine then! Don't believe! But if you can't trust me maybe then you don't deserve me!" Mother yelled. That's when I saw the suitcase sitting before her feet like a little demon taunting me into running over there to go with Mother. But then what about Father? And Brother? I couldn't just leave them. "Lawliet!"

My head rose to meet Mother's jade eyes, cold as stone. "Yes?" I whispered, knowing what she was going to say.

"Come on! We're leaving. I'll get you something to eat on the way to the airport," she announced as though we were going on a fun vacation trip.

Tears formed at the brim of my eyes when I turned to face Father who stood there, solemnly looking at the ground. I could see how having his wife leave him practically ripped his pride right off his back. "Lawliet!" Mother hollered again to catch my attention.

I looked at her again though now tears had slipped past my ebony eyes. Slowly I shook my head while taking a few steps backward. "I… I… c-can't," I said before running down the hall towards my parents room.

"Fine," was the last thing I heard her say to me before she left, never again to be seen in my life. The slamming of the front door shortly followed after.

I closed the room to my parents' room, now letting the tears fall freely down my cheeks. I walked over to their dresser to see if I could smell Mother's perfume that she'd always wear to smell like beautiful flowers in full bloom. But I smelt nothing as I picked up some of her jewelry.

I ran my finger across the edge of the dresser drawers and at the end I came upon a picture of Mother and Father on a swing happily staring into each others' eyes. I picked it up and sat on their bed.

Close to my heart is where I held not only that picture, but also Mother. Even though she had left, she would never be gone.

_Brother, put your needles down  
The best thing for you is to leave this awful town  
Pretty soon, you'll have kids to feed  
If you see Mother tell her I can say…_

I came home late that night having taken a night shift at a local café to help support the family. Ever since Mother had left Father had gone into a deep depression and was fired from work so it was my job to provide for us.

The first thing I heard when I walked into our broken down apartment was the running of the faucet sink in the bathroom all the way at the end of the hall. I knew no one could possibly have been taking a shower that late at night.

I put my backpack on the couch and walked over to the bathroom door to find a puddle of water coming from the closed door. "Brother?" I said before pushing the door open.

Inside I saw that the floor was covered in water and that both the bathtub and sink faucets were running, full throttle. Peeking out from behind the toilet I could see Brother's skinny foot and blood running with the water.

Worriedly, I kneeled down in the water. "Brother!"

"My fault," he mumbled in reply. "Everything… my fault."

There he sat on the bathroom floor stark naked. I could see how skinny he had gotten over the five years that Mother had been gone. Protruding from his pale white skin was not only his rib cage but also his cheekbones and everything else. Lining his arms were deep cuts that had been cut over and over again and reopened countless of times. Also in his hand was a long needle he had plunged deep into his arm.

Horrified by how sickly he looked I jumped up from the water-filled floor and quickly grabbed a towel hanging on the towel rack in the bathroom. Just like a mother worried for her child's well-being, I wrapped him around in the towel and held him close to me. "Shh… shh…" I rubbed his arms and kissed his head trying my best to soothe him.

Rivers of tears fell from his eyes as he moved in closer, grasping at my shirt as though I were going to leave him and he had to make sure I couldn't go anywhere. "Law-Lawliet…" He cried. "I… I'm s-sorry! Mo… Mother… My f-fault."

Again I rubbed his arm and pulled him closer to me. "Shh, it's okay. Nothing is your fault. Shh… I'm here. I'll never leave you. Shh…"

For some reason, I knew everything was _not _going to be okay. Not as long as he stayed there in that dump we had called a home. But he couldn't just leave there. He had to leave from the very town we had grown up in and he had to go out into the world. Maybe then he could find the life that was meant for him.

_Please don't worry, I am doing fine  
You're much too busy to even find the time  
So use your chemicals and take this to your grave  
The boys you left are men you didn't raise!_

I sat before the computer screens in front of me taking in all the information they had to show me. "L. There is someone here to see you," Watari informed me. In his hand was a tray I knew was filled with different kinds of sweets just for me.

I rubbed my thumb across my lips. "Who is it?"

"Your brother, L." Watari placed the tray down on a table in the middle of two couches. "I'll go fetch him."

The silence had hung over me like a two thousand pound boulder weighing down my already bent shoulders. The last time I had seen Brother was the night in the bathroom when I told him that everything was going to be okay. I didn't even know what kind of man he came out to be.

Over the three years I hadn't seen Brother and the eight years I hadn't seen Mother, I hadn't gotten any word from them. It was as though we had all disappeared into thin air, all of us taking a piece of each other along with them.

I rose from my seat and walked over to the table that tray of sweets had been placed on. Taking a seat on the couch I imagined the worse. Because of my job as a detective I had always thought that to prepare myself for the worse.

I grabbed a sweet from the tray and listened as the steps of Watari and Brother neared the room I sat alone in. The doors swiftly swung open just before I placed the delicate sweet in my mouth. As the taste of the yummy delicacy overtook my mouth I heard Watari say, "L is in here. It is very nice to see that his brother has become such a wonderful young man."

_Wonderful young man? _I had thought.

I could hear Brother, in a deeper voice than before, chuckle. "I'm just trying my best to make the most of my time in this world."

Then the door was closed and the steps that brought my past closer to me echoed throughout the room. "Brother," I whispered as soon as he came into view. The small, meek boy I had cradled in my arms three years ago could not be seen in the tall, muscular man before me.

"Lawliet," he whispered back. Before I knew it he had an over to me and squished me with his colossal arms. Now it was he, who I had cradled, cradling me. "I've missed you Big Brother."

A small smile crept onto my lips as I wrapped my small arms around Brother. "I've missed you too."

_And daddy, how are you today?  
You must be proud of the boys that you have raised  
Your withered heart, and everything its seen  
Your cuts and calloused hands; you had kids to feed (you had kids to feed)_

I found his address out of the blue. Something I had just decided to search for one day, not expecting to find anything. But what I found was truly surprising.

One year after I had left and six years after Mother had left, Father had gotten a job as a doctor, something he had always wanted to be and had the needs to become. The only thing that had held him back was Mother who had told him that if he became a doctor that'd they never see each other. But at the hospital he had worked at he met a woman he had married eight months later.

"Watari?" I said.

He came right to my side. "Yes, L?"

"Have you seen Father? He lives in an area I'm sure you've been in before," I explained reaching for a sweet on a tray that Watari had recently brought in.

Watari looked at the monitor before me and examined the neighborhood and pictures of Father I had up. "Oh yes," he said. "Last week when I was out buying groceries I had bumped into him, though we didn't speak. He didn't know me and I had only remembered him from pictures you have shown me. He looked good, though. Strong and healthy."

I ran my thumb across my lips and bit my nail. "I see," I muttered. "Could you please get me a piece of paper and pen, Watari?"

"Of course, sir." Watari went right away to get a pad of paper and ballpoint pen for me.

I took them from him and thanked him just before he left. I looked at the blank sheet of paper and held the pen in my hand thinking of what to say. The last time I had seen Father was when I had left home. I had gone into his room where he sat, a somber look on his face, and told him that it was time for me to leave. I remember having put seven hundred dollars, my life's savings, on the dresser telling him that he should do something with his life.

And then it came to me like a thief in the night.

**Dear Father,**

**This is your son, Lawliet. I'm pleased to inform you that I've become a detective and quite a great one at that. No longer do I need to wait tables just to be able to put food on the table for I'm doing a job that I like. I get to save lives everyday and I feel good when I am able too.**

**Because I am a detective I have access to certain files that led me to your address. Because I am a curious detective I decided to see how you were doing and I'm delighted to see that you've followed your dreams and become a doctor. But not only that, you've moved on and married a wonderful woman and you're living in a very nice place.**

**I've recently seen Brother and I am very happy to say that he has grown up to be a wonderful man. You should be very proud of the men that you've raised. And I must say that I've very proud of you as well.**

**Your Loving Son,  
L. Lawliet**

_Please don't worry, I am doing fine  
You're much too busy to even find the time  
So use your chemicals and take this to your grave  
The boys are left men you didn't raise!_

There we all sat like a family once again. Everyone had exactly what they deserved. Father sat with his new wife in a clean black tuxedo right next to Brother who sat with his wife and two children. I sat next to him running my thumb across my lips and occasionally biting my nail. Mother lay in her casket being buried deep beneath the earth.

"It's sad isn't it?" Brother asked, leaning towards me.

I looked at him puzzled. "What is?"

"Mother. How she committed suicide by overdosing." Brother looked at me as though it should've been obvious what he was talking about.

I shrugged my shoulders. "I find it quite funny."

Now he looked at me puzzled. "What do you mean? Mother is dead."

"Well… who would've thought that Mother would be the one to bring us all together again?"

Father, who had been listening in on the conversation, chuckled. "That's for sure. Who would've thought that the woman who separated us all would've been the one to bring us all back together again? It's quite ironic actually."

Brother processed it through his head and then slightly smiled. "You're right."

The ceremony ended and everyone stood up to leave. Father, Brother, and I stood around her grave. I looked down at where she was buried and only one thought ran through my head. "At least she knows the boys she left… are men she didn't raise."

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**I hope you guys liked it! Please review if you'd like! You know! Tell me what you think! Thanks!**

**EmIkO-cHaN ^/-\^ (/.0)**


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